After I wrote a joke on my Twitter involving the word ‘aeroplane‘, I received a response from one of my followers, politely informing me that it was in fact correctly spelled ‘airplane‘. Obviously I was very cordial in then informing them that ‘airplane‘ was the Americanised spelling of the word, and they conceded that “there is an exception if you are British.”, although frankly, that should certainly be the other way around!

Anyway, I bring this up not to have a go at someone misguidedly trying to correct my spelling, but rather at what it made me think about afterwards. I hate to admit it, especially since most of my followers are American, but there is and has always been in Britain, this ever-present stereotype that Americans are stupid; just as American television suggests that Americans hold a stereotype that British people are pompous…